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New Poll Shows A Surge For President Obama!

It was a poll of all my friends and family and in my mind, has just as much validity as any of the major news organizations and their latest sampling of 700 – 1000 people. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not a reactionary person for the most part. I’m usually the one urging calmness in the face of hysteria and stepping back to look at the big picture. Well here I go again.

To me the biggest story from the weekend was the former Republican staffer who retired from the GOP and wrote a blistering piece about the lunacy in the Republican Party. It was all over the left blogosphere and Twitter. A lot of truth in the piece, along with a lot of bullshit about the Democratic party too, remember, he was a loyal Republican so we have to take what he says about Democrats with a grain of salt.

I haven’t been watching the cable meme generators lately, but I don’t imagine that was the big story as far as they were concerned. I noticed the Twitter banter this morning that showed that the latest polls are what is generating the meme today. I’ve noticed recently that whenever there is a story that is negative to the Republicans or positive to the President, a new poll emerges and the subject is changed pretty quickly. Coincidence, or maybe just too many damn polls for lazy journalists to fall back on. The process is so much easier to cover than say, actual issues.

Knowing a little bit about election polling and having tracked them for several decades, I’m not getting myself worked up over the latest polls or any future ones for that matter. Maybe when we get close to the election, when the electorate is actually thinking about the election, then maybe I’ll go over to Nate Silver’s blog and see what the numbers say. But until then, you all keep chasing your tails, I have better things to do with my time.

The last thing I’ll say about polls in this post is that the media just loves to pin the entire right track/wrong track number on the sitting president. I think that is bullshit, especially in the partisan times we are living in. The scorched earth politics from the right and even some on the left these days, may turn everyone off to politics and bring everyone’s poll numbers down. After all, that’s what scorched earth politics is all about. But when it comes time for people to pull a lever for who they want to represent them, there won’t be an option labeled “they all suck” and I’m confident President Obama and the Democrats will come out on top — because the craziness from the right doesn’t seem to be letting up. Yeeeee hawwwwww!

7 thoughts on “New Poll Shows A Surge For President Obama!”

Polls are done so poorly. They basically just call people and say, “I’ll tell you what to think and you just nod, okay?”
Too bad Nate Silver can’t be out on the road with his side-kick Sean Quinn this cycle. It was much more fun to read Nate when he had a real sense of what real people were thinking.

Polls are hardly indicative of anything and aren’t all that great at predicting long term outcomes. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who hates polls, finds that most of them seem to be deceptive and proceeded to explain to me that they merely indicate overall mood. The margins of errors are also usually way greater than what they claim he told me, he knows more about these sorts of things then me.

Either way I’m sure that every current elected official is in trouble, peoples attitude towards the country and those in power has taken a slide. I am still optimistic that Obama will get elected and if you’ll read further you’ll note that the polls also said that people are blaming the republicans more than they are the democrats, this should tell us what the polls are really saying and not what they are trying to paint it.

I started to write a post about margin of errors, methodologies, biased questions and all that crap but decided to just stay simple. Yes, Jeff, the margin of error for most of these polls is from +/- 3.1% to 3.5% for the entire poll, but when they start breaking out the numbers by party affiliation, they jump to +/- 4.5% and higher. There used to be a time when reporters would actually tell you the MOE and give context to the poll, not so much anymore. They treat them like they are the actual election results. There are so many variables that go into conducting and interpreting polls, it’s just stupid to spend too much time even talking about them. The problem is that everyone pushing a meme uses them to their ends. I see the Professional Left and their newest member, Oliver Willis is using the latest poll results to push his woe is me meme. Pathetic…

In my 72 years, I have never been polled by any national polling group. I have had some local pollsters calling me and they turned out to be PUSH polls trying to make me vote for the candidate they were working for.

Some of these polls are actually automated polls which just ask a series of questions and honestly they seem to follow more of a push polling method as Grant said. They aren’t nearly as trustworthy as they are made out to be.

Today’s NBC/Wall Street Journal has Obama and Romney neck and neck. I would love to see the two in a debate and Romney stutter over his many flip-flops. Mostly, I fear Gov. Perry being the GOP nominee as I have watched him for two decades here in Texas win every contest with a lot of money from cronies and avoiding debating his opponents and getting away with it.

Perry claims he went to A&M to become a veterinarian but changed his major when he flunked organic chemistry. Many here feel he is not the brightest bulb in the box but very good at schmoozing/pandering to the public. Perry has avoided debating here so it will be interesting to see how he answers on his feet, unscripted in national debates. He avoided a bullet yesterday in South Carolina having to rush back to Texas to watch the fires from a helicopter. Since the fires are currently 0% contained and now nearly 600 homes are destroyed, maybe he can use this excuse again to avoid the Reagan Library tomorrow night!

He did speak in South Carolina over the weekend before rushing home. He told a crowd that asked if he believed in gun control and he answered, “Use BOTH hands!”

A woman in the crowd said Perry “was easy on the eyes”. In his many runs for office in Texas he played up his metrosexual in cowboy boots looks. My niece, recently divorced at the time, worked in his campaign back when he ran for Agricultural Commissioner in the early 90’s. I used to gag when she would gush how she “loved” Rick Perry who she thought was so “dreamy”. Of course he has wrinkled over the years but still has a very full head of mostly dark hair and evidently old Republican women still love him. Who cares if he has an anti-woman record?

Sounds like he’s a poor debater. I doubt that these excuses will fly with the public at large like they did in Texas. They want to hear his opinions and jobs programs that he has to offer. I would be more wary of Romney although public opinion of Romney has taken a turn for the worse over time and probably will continue to dive.